Teacher indicted ‘for sending X-rated photos to students and having sex with 17-year-old boy’

Special education teacher, 22, is indicted ‘for sending X-rated photos to male students and having sex with a 17-year-old boy’

  • Lindsey Sherrod Bates indicted on charges of engaging in sex act with student, distributing obscene material and having sexual contact with student 
  • Bates started teaching special education and coaching volleyball at Madison County High in Alabama in the 2018-19 school year 
  • She is accused of sexting with two students, and having sex with one of them 
  • She was married at the time to Drew Bates, a law enforcement officer and son of Madison County Sheriff’s deputy; the couple divorced in July 

A special education teacher form Alabama has been indicted on five criminal counts for allegedly sending obscene messages to male students and having sex with a 17-year-old boy enrolled at her school.

Lindsey Sherrod Bates, 22, who until March had taught at Madison County High School and coached volleyball, was indicted last Friday on a felony count of engaging in a sex act with a student younger than 19, and misdemeanor counts of distributing obscene material to a student and having sexual contact with a student.

If convicted of the most serious of the charges against her, the former educator could face up to 20 years in prison.

Other counts against her include distributing obscene material to a student and having sexual contact with a student

Ex-special education teacher Lindsey Sherrod Bates, 22 (left and right), has been indicted on charges of engaging in a sex act with student under 19. Other counts against her include distributing obscene material to a student and having sexual contact with a student

Until late March, Bates had taught at Madison County High School in Alabama

Until late March, Bates had taught at Madison County High School in Alabama 

Bates’ defense attorney, Robert Tuten, told the local news outlet Al.com his client is ‘looking forward to clearing this up and having her day in court.’

Bates, who was married at the time to the son a local sheriff’s deputy, was arrested on April 12, about two weeks after resigning her teaching job.

According to court records, Bates is accused of having sex with the 17-year-old male student, and sending photos to that teen and a second student at the school. Neither victim was enrolled in special education classes.  

Seven months later, Bates still has her teaching certificate in Alabama.

According to state Department of Education records, Bates’ alleged misconduct has been noted, but the agency so far has ‘not proposed any negative action’ against the woman’s certification.

Bates had started working at Madison County High at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. 

In May 2018 she married Drew Bates, a law enforcement officer

Lindsey and Drew divorced in July

In May 2018 she married Drew Bates, a law enforcement officer. Lindsey and Drew divorced in July

At the school she worked as a special education teacher and coached junior varsity and varsity volleyball. 

Bates’s husband of one year, Andrew Bates, a local law enforcement officer and the son of Madison County Sheriff’s Deputy Stacy Bates, filed for divorce two days after her arrest, citing ‘incompatibility.’ The couple’s divorce was finalized in July. 

Bates' now former father-in-law is Madison County Sheriff's Deputy Stacy Bates

Bates’ now former father-in-law is Madison County Sheriff’s Deputy Stacy Bates  

Stacy Bates has been the chief deputy of the county since January 2019 and formerly was a cop at the Athens Police Department and a lieutenant with Huntsville Police Department.

‘The Sheriff’s Office started an investigation as soon as the allegations were brought to our attention, and Chief Bates was never involved in that investigation,’ Madison County Sheriff Kevin Turner in a statement around the time of Bates’ arrest.

The office clarified that Lindsey’s relationship to Stacy Bates ‘in no way has affected the investigative process or urgency leading to today’s arrest, nor to the future criminal justice proceedings’.

‘Because the victim(s) in these charges are juveniles no specific details of the investigation are being released at this time,’ office spokesman Donny Shaw said in a statement.

Bates remains free on bail pending her trial, which is scheduled to begin next February.

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk